Does approaching a woman on the street and asking her out ever work?

If you're George Clooney, yes.

I don't think it has anything to do with "distracting" her. I believe it is part of basic human nature, works in other areas (not just dating) and works on both men and women.

It turns out no matter what you want to ask someone to do -- donate money, sign a petition, etc. -- if you first get them to agree to something else (presumably smaller and more innocuous), it increases the chances that they'll say yes to the subsequent request.

I wish I could remember where I learned this (I'll have to do some research and come back and post another comment. I think it was from someone like Daniel Pink (author of "Drive").

Approaching on the street is tough and not for beginners. There's an art to meeting potential dates in public, and a street--where most people are going somewhere rather than hanging out--isn't particularly a good venue.

It's easier to strike up a conversation in line at Starbucks or in line at the grocery store. "Hey, who orders something off menu when the line is a mile long?" Or, "Look at that guy buying all those loaves of bread! Think he's trying to gain weight?"

The goal is to break the ice and then see where things go from there. Try reading Roosh V's _Day Bang_ if you're interested in more.

It occurs to me that the reason that asking for something trivial and working up to the big stuff, is that you're creating an opportunity, in a small way, for the woman to get to know you. Obviously that's very sweeping, but being able to talk to someone gives you time to work out if you like them.

Even being asked out immediately by the adorable George Clooney would probably freak most people out!

@Stani . . . that's exactly what I was thinking. Sure, someone can successfully ask "Hey, how 'bout that local or college sports team" and still be a serial killer . . . but it's amazing how many dudes can't actually politely chat with an attractive woman without staring fixedly at her boobs, asking, "So, enough of this small talk, you wanna blow me?" or . . . whatever.

Most of us can tell in a sentence or two at least whether someone is polite, relatively intelligent, and interested in more than *just* boobs. That doesn't mean you run off and marry him, but a non-commital beverage in a well-lit place is a reasonable next step towards seeing if those impressions bear out. If not, hey, it was a pretty low-investment risk.

I have been creepily propositioned by smoking-hot guys, and their smoking hotness can only go so far. A jerk is still a jerk, and that usually shows pretty quickly.

Well, I once saw three guys pick up three girls at a pedestrian crossing. They did do awfully well, those guys, being charming and nice, so sure. Not sure I'll try it myself. Kinda seems like a thing you'd do in your teens; not in your forties.

Expanding on what Curt Hibbs posted, many sales techniques focus on getting the prospective client to say "Yes" (to almost anything). I think the earliest description that I've seen for this technique is in Dale Carnegie's book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" from the late 1920s. That's why pitch lines say "Would you like a 3% interest rate?" or "Would you like to double your money in 6 months? People tend to mentally detach themselves from these obvious pitch lines (I know I do), but asking for a light or directions is much more subtle and probably even more effective. The stranger is actually doing you a favor and has made some (low-level) commitment to your well-being or success.

I don't think I could ever do the totally cold sell, on-street pickup. I need something, even a conversation of 2 minutes, to even ask. So good advice, not just on how to make it more likely she'll say yes, but to give an idea of how to make it easier to do. I think this works on the asker as well as it seems to on the askee.

Then again, my ex-gf who walked everywhere used to regularly get propositioned by guys slowing their cars down and yelling out the window (I live in a neighbourhood with a large Italian and Greek population, mostly 2nd generation now, and a lot of those guys think they're God's gift to women). Obviously some guys don't have a problem with it. I don't know how often it works for them though.

A jerk is still a jerk, and that usually shows pretty quickly.

Yep. However, I can still be nice to the jerk when I tell him to get lost. In fact, I talk to pretty much anyone who says something to me first, and I'm always polite, even when I'm telling someone to go soak their head!

I don't understand how this works out. I have been approached on the street, and even when I 1) was single and 2) found the guy attractive, the reality is he's a total stranger. Presumably you're headed somewhere, so you can't stick around and chat. I've been given a phone number, but I'm probably not going to call up someone I don't know.

I guess the situation would have to be one where you were free to talk or go for coffee right then.

One of my good friends met her boyfriend (a very stable, nice guy) on the bus. They took the same bus home from work every day, and one day he asked her what she was reading. They chatted on the bus for a few weeks before she finally went on a date with him. So if you see a cute girl on the bus, chat with her! Yes, the stats show that most of the time you'll be rebuffed, but then what have you lost in this chance encounter with a stranger? I do think that in this case she would have been turned off if he'd opened by asking her on a date; but instead, he chatted with her in a friendly way first.

Serial killers have been using this technigue for ages. Ted Bundy lured his victims by asking for help loading a canoe onto the roof of his car (he wore a fake cast to make himself an object of sympathy). Also, Moors murderess Myra Hindley lured her victims by asking for help to find a lost glove (Pauline Reid) or to move some heavy boxes (John Kilbride).

The same technique often works when pulled over by a traffic cop. Get him to be helpful in a small way first; once he shifts gears from "hard-nosed uncompromising cop" to "helps stray cats out of trees", he'll be inclined to stay there.

The way I usually do this is to apologize for whatever I got pulled over for, and then to ask for directions. I'd estimate that it's worked for me four times out of five.

A guy was arrested for molesting a woman in a movie theater. He confessed to hundreds of such incidents when questioned. The police had no record of complaints in most instances and, when asked about this, he said that more than half the women cooperated.

I met my wife on a bus to O'Hare airport when I was 19. I was a student at Yale, she at Univ. of Chicago. I wouldn't have sat next to her but there were no open benches so I had to sit next to someone. We were both traveling to NY, so I changed my airlines and flight to sit with her (the old days of "stand-by"). We were married less than two years later; we will have our 40th wedding anniv. this year.

Having approached hundreds of women in public, I think the numbers shift due to simple rapport building more than the compliance ladder effect.

People's default option when given a scary choice without time to think is to reject it. If you just ask the girl for a date she has no time to think and she's still off-balance from your approach. So she'll reject you as her default decision.

Talking about something - anything - else for a minute gives her time to center herself and make a decision that is not the default no.

It's also a demonstration of high value, since it shows you're not a massively socially miscalibrated weirdo who asks for a date without barely saying hello.

There's lots of other complicated stuff going on here, but that seems like the basics of it.

The compliance ladder thing exists, but it's a lot more meaningful over longer time scales and higher degrees of compliance.

If anyone wants to try this just google day game and have fun with your new terrifying extreme social hobby.

For the criminal element out there, the asking for directions, light, change, etc... is called 'The Interview'. It allows the criminal to size up the person and already start the path to compliance (gimme your cash!). See Th_Ph's comment...

Mike K., yeah a friend of my cousin told me about that one.
More seriously, I always took the approach that asking to have a drink would lead to getting to know someone during the conversation. I have not been successful with this approach.

Have none of you watched Lifetime movies? That man you've loved and been married to for 14 years is likely to be a serial killer.

Similarly, that stranger asking for a light is probably the true love of your life.

I think some of this is covered in "Influence" by Robert Cialdini. That books is often cites in other books on influencing and motivating others.

Also in salesmanship, it's often taught to get the customer in the habit of saying yes with simple questions, so that when the salesman asks for the sale, the customer is already in the habit of saying yes to the salesman's questions.

So they went from a 97% rejection rate to a 85% rejection rate. Noticeably better, but still horrible odds.

ben franklin told a story about a guy that didn't like him. ben asked a favor--to borrow a book, and the guy obliged. after doing this small favor, the guy felt pretty good about himself, and was now open to doing other favors for mr. franklin.

>Serial killers have been using this technique for ages.

Now I don't feel so weird for my train of thought. Still liked the column, but the first thing I thought was "that guy who tried to rape me years ago asked me for the time".

(Not that I think every man who asks you for the time, or for a light, or for your number is a predator).

Whenever I am asked for help by a complete stranger on the street, I think of the movie "The Vanishing" (Keifer Sutherland and Jeff Bridges). Remember that movie? That scared any notion of helping strangers right out of my little 25 year old head. I would NEVER accept an offer to go for a drink with someone I don't know and/or have had the chance to vet in some way. Then again, I don't need to, because I'm married to my bestie, and he'll be the one to find me before the cat does.

I can think of only one time when I approached a woman "cold." It was in the early '80s, at a local park. I saw this very attractive woman (an olive-skinned brunette, the type that always makes my heart race) sitting on blanket reading a book. I expected to get a snarky "can't you see I'm busy reading" response but I walked over to her anyway and said "Hi, what are you reading?" To my surprise (and delight) she was very receptive. We ended up talking for quite some time, I got her phone number and we ended up dating for a few months.

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Laurie: Whenever I am asked for help by a complete stranger on the street, I think of the movie "The Vanishing" (Keifer Sutherland and Jeff Bridges). Remember that movie?

Laurie, you should check out the original Dutch film. It's much better than that remake.

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Joe: So they went from a 97% rejection rate to a 85% rejection rate. Noticeably better, but still horrible odds.

Although the fact that the men were strangers likely accounts for most of the high rejection rate, some of that rate may also be due to the women simply not finding the men attractive. If you could conduct a similar experiment, where three men asked out 360 women -- and you somehow knew that all of the women found each of the men to be fairly-to-very attractive -- I wouldn't be surprised if the rejection rate dropped even more.

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Anathema: I have been creepily propositioned by smoking-hot guys, and their smoking hotness can only go so far. A jerk is still a jerk, and that usually shows pretty quickly.

If a single guy was creepily propositioned by a smoking-hot woman, what do you think his likely response would be?

"So they went from a 97% rejection rate to a 85% rejection rate. Noticeably better, but still horrible odds."

I've seen discussions about surveys of women in online dating sites that showed most women rate 80% of the men's profiles as "unattractive" and very unlikely they would respond. So, even there you've got 80% rejection rate for the "normal" (non-alpha) dudes, and that's in an environment where a woman is supposedly more receptive. The difference of 80-85% could be within statistical error here, so I'm inferring that cold approach could work just as well as anything else. Wow, without Game most of us are just screwed..

I find telling a fart joke does not help either.

Waving money helps with the right kind of girl. Fast response too.

This was one helluva lot easier before Internet dating. Used to be, people who were receptive to possible interest were out in the public space. We met each other in libraries, laundromats, and so on. But nowadays, it's assumed that if you have such interest you're expressing it online. That's why people out in public hardly even make eye contact anymore.

Unless, of course, you're George Clooney.